programs running in background

steve617

In my next article that I write for my local paper i'll be doing part 2 of "why is my computer running slow" i just published part 1. and discussed RAM. So i'm going to talk about MSCONFIG but I would like to find a simple program that shows whats running in the backgroud. Thanks for any suggestions. Mainly something user friendly for non techies.

Thanks

120nm4n

The processes tab of task manager. I don't think there's a simpler way of showing what's going on in the background (as in, explains what the processes are).

steve617

That is true however I may not have been clear. I need a simple way of removing the unneeded files that does not need to be running in the background and knowing what they are.

RobertKaucher

This gets into some of the far more complicated areas of the OS. I would not feel comfortable encouraging end users to perform such tasks unless you very clearly warn them of the dangers and tell them they are proceeding at their own risk. I have seen end users who believed they were following the instructions of competent techs delete essential files from within the System32 folder and delete entire segments of their registry.

The best program for this task is ProcMon from tht Windows Internals suite. It is not easy to use because the task you are writing about (going beyond MSConfig) is a technical one. But you could use ProcMon and show them how to remove information from view that they do not need.

tpatt100

I tell novices to leave that stuff alone, I check mine every so often but that is the security side of me checking for some weird process that is normally not there. Usually I discover messed up stuff like Firefox liking to use up 300mb+ of ram....

steve617

I think you all has given me some good advice. It would probably not be a good idea to have people not knowing what they are doing trying to remove background programs. Maybe I'll take a different approach on speeding the computer since I cover RAM I may mention upgrading the video card etc. Have to do some thinking. May recommend a regisry cleaner and delete temp files.

kalebksp

I think you should cover how to backup your system before anything relating to removing files or cleaning the registry. Personally I don't trust registry cleaners, I've seen them F-up more systems than I have seen them fix.

Ahriakin

Autoruns (Sysinternals) is far more powerful than Msconfig, it looks daunting at first but they only really need to check a few sections, depending on experience level.

wd40

RobertKaucher wrote: »

This gets into some of the far more complicated areas of the OS. I would not feel comfortable encouraging end users to perform such tasks unless you very clearly warn them of the dangers and tell them they are proceeding at their own risk. I have seen end users who believed they were following the instructions of competent techs delete essential files from within the System32 folder and delete entire segments of their registry.

The best program for this task is ProcMon from tht Windows Internals suite. It is not easy to use because the task you are writing about (going beyond MSConfig) is a technical one. But you could use ProcMon and show them how to remove information from view that they do not need.

I was going to say process explorer "as a replacement for task manager"
and autoruns "as a replacement for msconfig"

but then both are more complicated alternatives.

anyway you can find them here

Windows Sysinternals: Documentation, downloads and additional resources

steve617

My main concern is coming up with something easy for them to understand about speeding up a slow computer or a computer that has running slower than it should. So far I have covered antivirus, malware, RAM and defrag.